Standard Missile-2

Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) is the world's premier fleet-area air defense weapon, providing increased intercept range, high- and low-intercept capability, and performance against advanced and anti-ship missile threats. Its primary mission is fleet-area air defense and ship self-defense, but it has also demonstrated an extended-area air defense protection capability.

The SM-2 also has a secondary anti-surface ship mission, and it uses tail controls and a solid-fuel rocket motor for propulsion and maneuverability. SM-2 has an extensive area- and self-defense flight test history with more than 2,500 successful flight tests from domestic and international platforms.

The most advanced variant, the SM-2 Block IV, has successfully intercepted and destroyed short-range ballistic missile targets, demonstrating the weapon's ability to stop ballistic missile threats in their final phases of flight. Work on the SM-2 Block IV proved vital in positioning our Standard Missile-6 to take on its new sea-based terminal defense role.

The SM-2 family continues to grow internationally: Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain and Taiwan have deployed surface combatants; Australia's Air Warfare Destroyer will employ SM-2; and several other navies are in the process of defining requirements and ship configurations to support SM-2 applications.